My wife and I were talking about this today and we thought it's possible that what has just happened in Nepal is at least in some sense the most democratic thing any country has ever done.
If the format is to be sustainable, they will need to find or found a different platform.
How is one faction holding an internal vote to impose rule on the rest of the people, who have no representation, anything at all like a democracy?
(“democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." etc)
It was an open discord server that anyone sufficiently motivated with an internet connection could join. So not representative of everyone, but obviously more democratic than if the military had just appointed someone by themselves
They are imposing on a country who didn't vote for it a leader who will rule them.
> "It was an open discord server that anyone sufficiently motivated with an internet connection could join."
Only one political viewpoint was represented on that server—the viewpoint of people who agreed with the overthrowing-the-government politics they were organizing on it.
"Motivated" is the wrong question: people with different or opposed viewpoints, would refuse to participate in that teenager internet poll, because they would not identify it as a legitimate election. (And they'd be 100% right).
Obviously, she will lose legitimacy as an interim leader if she doesn't swiftly organise free and fair elections for a legitimate prime minister. The fact that she's acceptable both to the young protestors and to the military leadership suggests she's a safe pair of hands for this role.
What outcome would you have preferred to see, given the circumstances?
Does it currently? I have a couple Discord accounts that never got tied to a phone number and can still use them.
Telegram on the other hand does that, I've never managed to get my own account for it without a phone number... and all the anonymous (pay for temp number) end up giving you a shared "account" that anyone can take from you if they get attribued the same number (and they will).
I have no skin in this game, but I get the general line of thought.
I really like this kind of conversation because as I read peoples comments I see where some of the obstacles are.
Discord is a spectacularly bad fit for that, it was probably only used because the timetable was short and "it was there" and "everyone already had it".
I don't see that argument at all. What was so democratic about it? Violent overthrowal of the government may sometimes be justified, but it is not an act of democracy.
1) You could make digital elections secure with issued digital IDs, and simply recording everyone's vote and it would be easily auditable.
But no one wants elections where (the contents of) your vote is recorded somewhere.
So 2) You use your digital ID to be able to vote once, but if you're no longer connected to your vote, it would be much more susceptible to tampering if you can't establish a double blind chain of custody of the votes, which is what expensive in person voting is doing very well.
The first option would be great if you could somehow guarantee a corruption free future of your country where no one will come after you for your vote (hint: you can't).
I’m sure there are other obstacles to surmount, but if that system works, you could have a digital id, use it to vote every time, and audit your own vote without anyone else knowing what you voted.
I don't think we should ever be able to know any individual's vote.
Ballot reconciliation ensures that every ballot printed is tracked, as well as ballots counted and ballots cast match up.
And as it is spread out over counties and districts, any injection anywhere would fail those checks.
I'm not an expert, and there is likely at lot more depth to this, but I did try to read up on it after the 2020 election and was sufficiently convinced at the time at least, but I'm happy for anyone to correct me.
Outside the comfy first world, the bar for government sanity can get extremely low.
Therefore activists need suggesting a representative of the groups. IMHO a private voting is fine in this case.
Wouldn't it be best for the country to be leaderless, with no laws being made and all existing government departments continuing their work under the same set of budgets and instructions as before until a new leader is selected by the election department?
Ie. The goal of lawmakers should always be to, at any given point, have a set of laws such that the country will continue for as long as possible with no further laws.
Ie. Perhaps do budgets by percentage of GDP rather than fixed amounts.
It tries to explain the circumstances where a coup such as this can lead to democracy.
Key interesting example include Portugal in 1974 ... and the American Revolution against the British.
It’s happened before and it could well happen again here. My heart goes out to the protestors. May they fill the power vacuum with strong leaders who can make their country better for future generations.
fivestones•4mo ago
The person they picked is 73 year old Sushila Karki, who used to be a Cheif justice of the Supreme Court until she retired at age 65, and is the only woman to have ever held that position. She is also now the first and only female to run the country. The protests that overthrew the Nepali government this past week were started to protest corruption in government, and Karki is known for being fiercely against corruption as a judge. She was sworn in on Friday. Good luck to her. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179qne0zw0o